Hyderabad: The author and activist Prof. Ram Puniyani have his say on the unprecedented move by 4 senior judges of Supreme court 10 days back.

Warning that democracy is at stake, four senior judges of the Supreme Court on Friday mounted a virtual revolt against the country’s chief justice, raising questions on “selective” case allocation and certain judicial orders, sending shockwaves across the judiciary and polity.

The unprecedented move by the four judges including Justice J Chelameswar, the second senior judge after Chief Justice Dipak Misra, brought to fore the simmering differences between the country’s top judge and some senior judges in the apex court in recent months. The apex court currently has 25 judges

Justice Chelameswar himself described as an “extraordinary event” in the annals of the Indian judiciary when the judges addressed a joint news conference during which he said “sometimes administration of the Supreme Court is not in order and many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months.”

The judge accused Justice Misra of not taking any “remedial measures” on some of the issues which affected the functioning of the apex court that they had raised. Justice Misra became the CJI on August 28, 2017 and he is due to retire from on October 2 this year

Unless this institution is preserved, “democracy will not survive” in this country, Justice Chelameswar said at the unscheduled press conference, in the first of its kind event in independent India, leaving uncertain how this open dissension in the hallowed institution would be resolved.